Germany's service sector made an encouraging start to the second quarter, posting the fastest rise in business activity for ten months, the latest HCOB PMI® survey compiled by S&P Global showed. The upturn was supported by growth in new business, which in turn contributed to a pick-up in the pace of job creation as backlogs of work accumulated across the sector. Activity was expected to continue rising in the year ahead. At the same time, the survey signalled stubbornly high inflationary pressures across the services economy. Both input costs and output prices increased at rates well above their respective ... (full story)